The Burj Dubai (Arabic: برج دبي "Dubai Tower") is a super tall skyscraper currently under construction in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. When it is completed in 2009, it will be the tallest man-made structure in the world. Scheduled for occupancy in September 2009, the building is part of a 2 km² (0.8 sq mi) development called Downtown Dubai.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Developer Guillermo Socarras has been in talks with the Federal Aviation Administration to secure approval for the height of the tower in this superstructure proposed for Miami, called Miapolis :

"The 160 storey building would be more than 183 metres higher than the Burj Khalifa if built and would house an amusement park, observatory, restaurants, 1.96 million sq ft of shops, over 1000 apartments, 1 million sq ft office space and a 792 room hotel."

The project has been around for 10 years but the FAA movement is new, apparently.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

The tallest tower in the world was officially inaugurated this evening by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai. And in a surprise announcement, the Burj Dubai was officially unveiled as the Burj Khalifa, named after the UAE President and ruler of Abu Dhabi. The tower's official height was declared to be 828 metres, 10 metres taller than previous estimates had suggested.

Construction work on the newly named Burj Khalifa began in early 2004, and by July 2007, with the building of the 141st storey, it was the world's tallest building, surpassing the 448m Taipei 101 in Taiwan.

The building topped out in January 2009 with the completion of the spire. Over 110,000 tonnes of concrete were used to construct the foundations, while 330,000m3 of concrete and 39,000 tonnes of steel rebar were used for the tower, according to developer Emaar.

The tower's final look differs greatly from the initial photo released by Emaar and its total height was a closely guarded secret throughout.

The tower itself includes the Armani Residences and the Armani Hotel, private apartments, restaurants and the observation deck on level 124, which will be accessible to the general public.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Burj Dubai Skyscraper, a heads up building has been inaugurated today, the investors, property advisors, economists, and financial analysts has developed lot of expectations from the Burj Dubai Skyscraper to bring economic stress level down to get out of problematic situation and to grab the attention of the world once again. Although Burj Dubai Skyscraper is a great piece of art but the economic crises Dubai is going through has threaten Dubai to be under debt as tall as Burj Dubai Skyscraper.

Burj Dubai Skyscraper, the world’s tallest building with 200 stories placed at the world’s one of most advanced and richest location Dubai. The building has been inaugurated at a time when Dubai is facing the worst economical crises which can lead it the international bank defaulter and heavy debts.

Emaan is the company who built the building and the Chairman of the company has hoped a lot from the Burj Dubai Skyscraper. He said crises do come and go but this building will help to raise property prices in Dubai and that will help to say goodbye to the Crises.

Well, its really not understandable that why they spending such a huge amount of money to build such kind of huge buildings, the world got attracted in the past toward Dubai and paid sufficiently, there was a time when the property in Dubai has seen the highest jump value around back in 2005 and now it has fallen down to 86% the lowest in the history but they are still committed to bring more unique buildings.

The palm tree shaped island has eaten the money like anything and now it’s under debts of around $20 billion and the situation is getting worst.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

On January 4th, the Burj Dubai, arabic for the Tower of Dubai, was officially opened as the tallest building in the world. The Burj Dubai is 2717 feet tall, 160 stories. It is roughly as tall as the two World Trade Center towers placed one on top of the other. It is a beautiful building, designed by an architect from Chicago.

The Burj Dubai was built at the height of the global real-estate boom. It cost 1.5 billion dollars to build and due to the real estate crash, it is currently mostly empty. With a hotel, apartments and office space, the tower flooded Dubai with more residential and commercial space than the market can possibly bear. This beautiful tower will probably remain mostly empty for years to come.

The Burj Dubai can be a metaphor for pursuing goals in life that ultimately prove empty, like the current tower itself. In the recent terrific film “Up in the Air,” George Clooney works for a firm that a company hires in order to fire its employees. Clooney travels over 250 days a year, going from city to city, company to company, following a script to fire people and “ease their transition.”

As Clooney is alone and has a soul-destroying job, he finds an outlet in another goal, reaching 10 million American Airlines miles, a feat only accomplished by seven other people. When Clooney finally reaches that goal, he receives a special platinum card and a visit from the head pilot of American. Sitting together in first class, Clooney says to the pilot something like: “I’ve been thinking about this moment for years, what I would say to you. But now my mind is empty.”

In a sense, Clooney’s character built his own empty tower, 10 million American Airlines Miles tall, but like the tower in Dubai, it is empty. When we set our goals in life of building higher, acquiring, or hoarding, these material goals may not provide us with the satisfaction that we desire. Even if each of us won the lottery, and could stack up dollars bills in a tower that reached towards the sky, we all know that money does not buy happiness.

If we want to build something, we should not strive for a 160-story skyscraper. Each of us has plenty of work to do to build and strengthen our relationships with family members and friends. If we want to build something, let’s build our communities, seeking to strengthen our town and our connections to others.

The pursuit of material goods and taller buildings is perhaps only a form of self-aggrandizement and it can never provide us with ultimate satisfaction. It is when we shift the focus away from ourselves and to others, to strengthening the bonds of family, to building community and to helping those in need, then we have the potential to build something meaningful and lasting in our lives.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Dubai tower:

Dubai tower or Burj Khalifa is the largest structure in the world. It is about 2625 feet high and has more than 160 stories. It took five years to complete the construction of this building (from September 2004 to October 2009). It was opened on 4th January 2010. It is the exquisite masterpiece of Downtown Burj Dubai. It is surrounded by various shopping centers and hotels. It stands as a marvelous example of Dubai’s role in the changing world.

Burj Khalifa was designed by Louis Skidmore, Nathaniel Owings and John Merril of Chicago. More than 110,000 tons of concrete were used to construct this building. The total cost for completing this project was about $1.5 billion. It achieved a world record for installing the highest façade made up of aluminum and glass. It has the highest outdoor observation deck, which is located on level 124 of the tower.

Dubai tower is supported by a strong concrete mat, which is supported by reinforced piles made of concrete. A high density concrete was used in the foundations and cathodic protection system was used under the mat to reduce the harmful effects from the corrosive chemicals in the ground water.

The exterior cladding of the tower is made with aluminum and textured stainless steel panels. Nearly 26,000 hand cut glass panels were used in the exterior cladding. It is specially designed to withstand the extreme hot weather in Dubai.

The mechanical floors in Burj Khalifa abode the electrical sub stations, air handling units and water tanks, which are indispensable for the operation of the tower. The telescopic spire is the most important attraction of this tower. It comprises of more than 4000 tons of steel. It was built from inside the structure. It houses communication equipment and offers an overwhelming appearance to the tower.

The structural core of Burj Khalifa was designed in Y shape to reduce the wind forces on the tower. The central core of the tower provides resistance against torsion. The corridor walls resist the wind shears. A beautiful park of greenery and water features serve as an outdoor living space and entry to the Dubai tower.

Monday, January 11, 2010

The world's tallest tower 'Burj Khalifa' developed by Emaar Properties stands tall at nearly 2,718 ft; its twice the height of the Empire State Building in New York City.

The grand opening ceremony for the 11-hectare skyscaper was unveiled on January 4, 2010 in Dubai, U.A.E. to a crowd of thousands and the world in a crescendo of fireworks, lasers and fountain displays.

Fireworks cascaded from the tower and lasers blazed out from all levels leaving the crowds awestruck.

Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman of Emaar Properties, said that the tower represented a symbol of hope to the Arab world and a shining example of human achievement.

"Thousands of people from more than 100 countries have contributed to the realisation of 'Burj Khalifa'. The tower embodies the spirit and optimism of global collaboration, and shows to the world what can be achieved when communities work in partnership."

'Burj Khalifa' features luxury residences and offices, the world's first Armani Hotel, and the world's highest observation deck, 'At the Top', which is located on the tower's 124th floor. Around 90 percent of the tower's offices and apartments have been sold.

'At the Top' opens officially to the public on January 5. The handover of offices and apartments starts in February, and the Armani Hotel Dubai will be opened by its designer, Giorgio Armani, on March 18.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Since the birth of the Chicago School in the late nineteenth century, which sought not only to try to reach heaven but solve problems of space, massive structures that have emerged so far had not exceeded 700 meters. When we speak of the Burj Dubai (Khalifa) in the UAE, we will associate the word with a height of almost a thousand meters, specifically 828. It has a total floor number of 186, whose highest point is at 768 meters, and it will include more than one thousand luxury apartments and offices, a luxury hotel designed by Giorgio Armani, plus spas and restaurants.

The Burj Khalifa is only the central part of the development known as the Downtown Burj Khalifa (previously Downtown Burj Dubai, “Burj Dubai Center”in English), which along Sheikh Zayed Road, form a complex of two square kilometers,crossing the complete city in a transversal way.

The Chicano (half mexican half north-american) Adrian Smith was the chief architect, who worked with the firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) until 2006. Burj Khalifa had a budget estimated at more than 4,000 million dollars, which were increased to 20,000 million for the full development of the Downtown Burj Khalifa, part of the cost financed by the family of the Emir Mohammedbin Rashid Al Maktoum, among which his nephew Fuad bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Alvarez, just 20 years old, supported the idea by giving 25 million dollars.

Challenging the conditions of workers:

The project has been criticized by several human rights groups that say workers have been exploited since the beginning of 2004, most of them earning less than 10$ an hour and an average of 468 dirhams per month ($ 169). For the construction of the building it took more than 12,000 workers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (mostly), many of them taking advantage ofthe situation by staying overnight in the same building (dormitories), perhaps not wanting to lose more than half an hour to get down to the first floor. Environmentalists for their side have not been happy with the construction of what they think will be a black hole of energy consumption and something that will significantly increase the country’s carbon footprint.

With controversy or not, the fact is that this new building of the UAE has become the symbol of the country’s recoveryand is now considered a relique for the inhabitants of Dubai, increasingly proud of what is being built in their city.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

The Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai had its official opening ceremony on Monday although it was hardly a grand unveiling as you cant hide a 828 meter tall building behind a curtain. The Burj Khalifa (also known as the Burj Dubai) is the tallest man made structure ever built and has the world’s fastest elevators which travel at 40 mph. The building is so high that those visiting the top of it’s needle like tower are treated to the kind of views you would only otherwise see on a flight to Dubai.

One thing which always fascinates me about large buildings is the amount of effort required to maintain them. Very often large structures, in particular bridges, require constant cleaning so once those doing the work get to the end they start from the beginning again. Most skyscrapers require a lot of window cleaning as they tend to have floor to ceiling windows. The window cleaners who work on the Burj Dubai have to be fearless and fast as this video shows:

The building has 24,830 windows which total 120,000 square meters of glass. The cleaners use normal soapy water according to Dale Harding of Cox Gomyl

“It’s the same as an average shop front cleaner would use — there’s nothing complex about it at all,”

The top floors of the building require a more complex system than men dangling by ropes with a sponge in their hands. An Australian firm called Cox Gomyl were tasked with working out a way to keep the views from the top clear. They went through a series of ideas before designing a series of machines which emerge from the building a run on tracks along its outer edge. The 12 machines carry up to 36 windows cleaners who do their thing in the traditional manner.

The equipment required cost around $7.3 million and each machine weighs in at 13 tonnes. As well as the 12 moving platforms there are six smaller machines which clean the exterior of floors 21 and up. You can see these in action on Cox Comyl’s info page here.

To service the facades of the 828 m high structure, 3 permanent parapet mounted BMUs were installed at each of Levels 40, 73 and 109. These track-mounted and telescoping systems are operate on a horizontal track which has been installed on Burj’s exterior façade. The machines are very flexible in their operation and are able to luff, telescopic, hoist, slew and travel. The average outreach of these machines is 10 m, retracting to 5 m for the parking configuration.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Burj Dubai (Burj Khalifa) tower officially opened its doors on January 4, 2010, six years after the commencement of construction in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The tower previously known as Burj Dubai was renamed Burj Khalifa in honor of the current President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa.

Some of the records made by the $4.1 billion, half-mile-high skyscraper are:

With the opening today of the Burj Dubai, at 160 stories the world's tallest tower, we are reminded of regional promises unfulfilled.

The crown jewel of the United Arab Emirates, a high-rise that surpasses all high-rises in the world, opens with many vacancies among the 1,000-plus luxury apartments, Armani hotel and 37 floors of office and retail space in the spire designed by a Chicago-based firm. It's a symbol of the credit crunch that stalled the world's economy even as developers in exuberant Dubai were erecting the $1.1-billion tower.

It's also a reminder that just two years ago, the former American president started a hopeful tour of the Middle East in these environs - calling on Arab leaders throughout the region to rebuke Iran for its nuclear ambitions, and also calling on them to support a renewed peace initiative in Israel.

Former President George W. Bush, who passed through Dubai in January 2008 and deliivered a challenge to the region in Abu Dhabi, hoped to see Israeli and Palestinian leaders sign the framework of a peace agreement by the year's end.

The Burj Dubai is 26 percent vacant. With its residential quarters featuring fitness facilities, a residents' library, a cigar club, valet parking and a gourmet market, it was to provide "an unparalleled lifestyle.''

The "two-state solution'' is even emptier.

Designed by Adrian Smith of Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the Burj Dubai has overtaken Taipei 101 as the world's tallest. It includes 37 floors of office and retail space, 1,044 apartments and 160 hotel rooms designed by Giorgio Armani. It also holds the world's highest mosque and swimming pools on the 158th and 76th floors.(The tower is pictured here with laser beams lighting it Sunday, on the eve of its opening, in a Tribune photo by Kuni Takahashi.)

The ground where it stands serves as a reminder too of a still elusive promise of peace in the Middle East, which Bush outlined in an address at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi in January 2008 as he was beginning his tour of the Middle East. That also is the world's most expensive hotel - it cost $3 billion to build. In Dubai, And Bush had lunch with leaders atop another symbol of U.A.E. excess, a high-rise built in the shape of a sailboat. (This is a nation with an indoor ski slope.)

"A great new era is unfolding before us,'' Bush said in his address in Abu Dhabi. "This new era is founded on the equality of all people before God. This new era is being built with the understanding that power is a trust that must be exercised with the consent of the governed -- and deliver equal justice under the law. And this new era offers hope for the millions across the Middle East who yearn for a future of peace and progress and opportunity. ...

"For most of the world,'' Bush said then, "there's no greater symbol of America than the Statue of Liberty. It was designed by a man who traveled widely in this part of the world -- and who had originally envisioned his woman bearing a torch as standing over the Suez Canal. Ultimately, of course, it was erected in New York Harbor, where it has been an inspiration to generations of immigrants. One of these immigrants was a poet-writer named Ameen Rihani. Gazing at her lamp held high, he wondered whether her sister might be erected in the lands of his Arab forefathers. Here is how he put it: "When will you turn your face toward the East, oh Liberty?''

The U.A.E. address was the centerpiece of an eight-day tour of the Middle East in which Bush promoted his vision of a lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians and exhorted Arab leaders to pressure Iran to stand down from its nuclear ambitions.

The ruler of Bahrain, King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, who met and dined with Bush, called the American's initiative in the Middle East "a historical opportunity'' for "the realization of your vision for the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state, side-by-side with Israel, at a time such a vision being demanded by word's conscience.... We are hopeful that these aspirations will be realized.''

Yet, with the opening of the world's highest high-rise today - a symbol, in its own right, as emblematic of one nation's aspirations as the Statue of Liberty - the vacant quarters of the tower remain as empty as the promise of peace in the Middle East, which looms large in an agenda of unfinished international business.

President Barack Obama has vowed to take up the challenge of Middle East peace, embracing the two-state solution that his predecessor pursued. But, with renewed American focus on terrorist threats stemming from the al Qaeda-sponsored attempt to attack a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day, the ability of the U.S. to get those Middle East peace talks back on track appears as elusive, for now, as full occupancy for the soaring new Burj Dubai.

Monday, January 4, 2010

From “At the Top,” the name given to the observatory on the Burj Dubai, you can see the faint outline of the Middle East’s pariah-state Iran on the other side of the Persian Gulf. But at the media opening of the skydeck close to the top of the world’s tallest skyscraper Monday, you could just make out the undeveloped islands that make up the offshore Dubai World project that is synonymous with the sheikdom’s collapsing real estate industry.

After taking the brief ride to the 124th floor in one of the smoothest elevators I’ve ever travelled in, visitors are met with a bird’s eye view of the sprawling city - patches of desert, skyscrapers that appear tiny from such a height, unfinished buildings, the city’s Sheik Zayed road and interchanges - and perhaps the most impressive view of all - the Burj’s own shadow stretching out to the sea. “It’s like a huge sundial,” I heard one reporter say.

Even though you’re almost 2600 feet in the air, it surprisingly doesn’t feel that high. Despite my own fear of heights, I felt more grounded than I have done on other vertical tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. Perhaps the dirty windows helped. I was told that they had been cleaned just days before but that given their height they are prone to attracting dirt. I was also told that it takes six months to clean the towers windows from top to bottom so I couldn’t complain too much.

Inside the skydeck, there isn’t much to see. There is the obligatory souvenir shop and some trick viewing binoculars which allow you to see the view by day or by night, or in a live shot, but little else. Some information on what you can actually see from the viewing platform may be welcomed by the untrained eye, but like most things in Dubai, I put the lack of information down to the fact that the building is being opened when it’s not 100% complete.

UAE. Dubai announced Burj Dubai to the world with the claim, ‘History Rising’. Six years on and history has most certainly ‘risen’.

Burj Dubai will soon be transformed into a vibrant community for thousands of residents, employees, hotel guests and tourists. Up to 12,000 people will live, work and play inside the world’s tallest building.

The tower is the focal point of the 500-acre master planned community Downtown Burj Dubai, which is widely described as the most prestigious square kilometre on earth.

Burj Dubai is the development’s crowing glory in every sense, a building that has pushed the boundaries of design and engineering further than many thought possible.

Excavation work for the tower began soon after the announcement of its launch, with more than 60 contractors and consultants joining forces on a project of unprecedented scale and ambition.

When construction work was at its most intense, more than 12,000 people from over 100 countries were working every day at the Burj Dubai site. In total, Burj Dubai took 22 million man hours to build.

Mr. Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman, Emaar Properties, said Burj Dubai was a shining example of global collaboration. “Burj Dubai shows just what can be achieved when people from all over the world come together to strive for a common purpose.”

Strong foundationsStanding at more than 800 metres (2,625 ft), Burj Dubai captivates audiences with its height. But its construction underground is equally worthy of fascination. More than 45,000 cubic metres (1.59 million cubic ft) of concrete, weighing more than 110,000 tonnes, make up the tower’s steel-reinforced foundations with 192 piles running to a depth of over 50 metres (164 ft).

Inspired by natureWork on Burj Dubai’s superstructure began in March 2005, with the foundation work alone taking 12 months. The distinctive triple-buttressed outline of the Burj Dubai was inspired by the desert lily Hymenocallis.

Wind factorExtensive seismic and wind tunnel testing was carried out to perfect the design of the tower. The triple-buttressed shape of Burj Dubai allows it to manage the effect of wind vortices generated around the tower, as well as changes in atmospheric pressure between its base and spire.

Rock solidThe main construction material of Burj Dubai is reinforced concrete, specially designed to withstand the staggering pressures inherent in the world’s tallest building.

Climbing to the skyOnce the lengthy construction work of its foundation was complete, the vertical ascent of Burj Dubai was surprisingly fast. The first 100 levels of the tower were completed only 1,093 days after excavation started. A level was added every three days before the uppermost levels of the tower were reached.

In November 2007, the concrete for the highest reinforced core walls of Burj Dubai was pumped from ground level to a height of 601 metres (1,978 ft), breaking the previous record for concrete pumping held by Taipei 101. The pressure generated during the pumping work reached nearly 200 bars.

A glass actWork on the glass and aluminium exterior cladding of Burj Dubai started in May 2007 and was completed in September 2009. Nearly 400 skilled engineers were assigned to the project. At the outset, around 20-30 cladding panels were installed each day. The daily rate of installation reached 175 panels as the project neared completion. Burj Dubai has set a new world record for the highest installation of an aluminium and glass façade, at 512 metres (1,679.8 ft).

A staggering total of 24,348 panels cover a curtain wall area of 132,190 square metres (1.4 million sq ft). But the Burj Dubai’s shimmering exterior is designed to minimise heat transmission into the building itself, therefore saving energy. Condensation from the panels is also collected and used for landscape irrigation.

Pinnacle of achievementBurj Dubai’s spire may resemble a needle at ground level, but in reality it is a colossal structure made up of 4,000 tonnes of structural steel. Nor is it exclusively ornamental, housing as it does communications equipment for the tower.

Community spiritWith a total built up area of around 6 million square feet, Burj Dubai is set to become a living, vibrant community in the heart of Dubai. Around 2 million square feet inside the tower is dedicated to luxury residential apartments, while more than 300,000 square feet is allocated for office space. That’s in addition to the sections of the tower taken up by the world-first Armani Hotel Dubai and the Armani Residences Dubai.

Countless artworks by prominent Middle Eastern and international artists, including sculptures and various contemporary installations, adorn the interiors of Burj Dubai and line Emaar Boulevard throughout Downtown Burj Dubai.

Life of luxuryA total of 57 elevators and eight escalators serve people living, working and enjoying their leisure time inside the tower. Burj Dubai has four swimming pools, a cigar lounge, residents’ lounge, the fine dining restaurant ‘At.mosphere’, and a variety of health and fitness facilities.

Moreover, the tower’s 124th floor observation deck, ‘At the Top, Burj Dubai’, offers 360-degree views of the city and is open to the public.

Burj Dubai features ‘The Offices’, a 12-storey annex of prime office space; ‘The Club’, a four-storey health and fitness centre; and ‘Armani/Pavilion’, an outdoor entertainment venue that opens onto the Burj Dubai Lake and The Dubai Fountain, described as the world’s tallest ‘performing fountain’.

Heart and soulDemonstrating that Burj Dubai is more than just a building, its creators have perfected a written narrative that evokes the tower’s soul.

Visitors to the ‘At The Top, Burj Dubai’ observation deck can read the ‘I am Burj Dubai’ legend once they reach the ‘From the earth to the sky’, section of the tour.

Its opening stanza reads: “I am the power that lifts the world’s head proudly skywards, surpassing limits and expectations. Rising gracefully from the desert and honouring the city with a new glory, I am an extraordinary union of engineering and art, with every detail carefully considered and beautifully crafted...”

“I am the heart of the city and its people, the marker that defines Emaar’s ambition and Dubai’s shining dream. More than just a moment in time, I define moments for future generations…”

From the ‘‘From the earth to the sky’’, one can view Level 124 and the summit of Burj Dubai at a near vertical angle.

The main story's at the Washington Post, "Dubai opens half-mile-high tower, world's tallest." And it turns out the building's been renamed. From the Wall Street Journal, "Burj Dubai To Be Called Burj Khalifa Bin Zayed After UAE Pres." But I actually wanted to share a cool architecture review from the Los Angeles Times, by Christopher Hawthorne, " The Burj Dubai and architecture's vacant stare":

One of the odder, more complicated moments in the history of architectural symbolism will arrive Monday with the formal opening of the Burj Dubai skyscraper. At about 2,600 feet high -- the official figure is still being kept secret by developer Emaar Properties -- and 160 stories, the tower, set back half a mile or so from Dubai's busy Sheikh Zayed Road, will officially take its place as the tallest building in the world.

Designed by Adrian Smith, a former partner in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the Burj Dubai is an impossible-to-miss sign of the degree to which architectural ambition -- at least the kind that can be measured in feet or number of stories -- has migrated in recent years from North America and Europe to Asia and the Middle East. It is roughly as tall as the World Trade Center towers piled one atop the other. Its closest competition is Toronto's CN Tower, which is not really a building at all, holding only satellites and observation decks, and is in any case nearly 900 feet shorter.

Monday's ribbon-cutting, though, could hardly come at a more awkward time. Dubai, the most populous member of the United Arab Emirates, continues to deal with a massive real estate collapse that has sent shock waves through financial markets around the world and forced the ambitious city-state, in a significant blow to its pride, to seek repeated billion-dollar bailouts from neighboring Abu Dhabi. Conceived at the height of local optimism about Dubai's place in the region and the world, this seemingly endless bean-stock tower, which holds an Armani Hotel on its lower floors with apartments and offices above, has flooded Dubai with a good deal more residential and commercial space than the market can possibly bear.

And so here is the Burj Dubai's real symbolic importance: It is mostly empty, and is likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Though most of its 900 apartments have been sold, virtually all were bought three years ago -- near the top of the market -- and primarily as investments, not as places to live. ("A lot of those purchases were speculative," Smith, in something of an understatement, told me in a phone interview.) And there's virtually no demand in Dubai at the moment for office space. The Burj Dubai has 37 floors of office space.

Though Emaar is understandably reluctant to disclose how much of the tower is or will be occupied -- it did not reply to e-mails sent this week on that score -- it's fair to assume that like many of Dubai's new skyscrapers it is a long, long way from being full. In that sense the building is a powerful iconic presence in ways that have little directly to do with its record-breaking height. To a remarkable degree, the metaphors and symbols of the built environment have been dominated in recent months by images of unneeded, sealed-off, ruined, forlorn or forsaken buildings and cityscapes. The Burj Dubai is just the latest -- and biggest -- in this string of monuments to architectural vacancy.

The combination of overbuilding during the boom years, thanks to easy credit, and the sudden paralysis of the financial markets in the fall of 2008 has created an unprecedented supply of unwanted or under-occupied real estate around the world. At the same time, rising cultural worry about environmental disaster or some other end-of-days scenario has produced a recent stream of books, movies and photography imagining cities and pieces of architecture emptied of nearly all signs of human presence.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

At the opening of the Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest skyscraper, there were 10,000 fireworks, a dancing fountain, traditional Emirati dancers, skydivers and an impressive light show — but the biggest surprise of the evening came from Dubai’s ruler, Sheik Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Shortly after making his signature entrance in his white G55 Mercedes, number plate 1, Sheik Mohammed stopped to make a brief speech, saying that the tower, which has so far been known as Burj Dubai, would be renamed Burj Khalifa, after the president of the United Arab Emirates and emir of Abu Dhabi, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan. It is perhaps the most expensive naming rights deal in history and likely a reward for Abu Dhabi’s $10 billion bailout of Dubai in December after the emirate admitted it was struggling to deal with more than $80 billion of debt.

Once the initial shock had settled, the audience was then treated to a dramatic fireworks and light show around the mammoth structure. A series of skydivers branded in the country’s national colors dropped from the sky to kick off the celebrations, followed by a video showing the construction of the tower and its exact height of 828 meters (2,716 feet), which had previously been kept under wraps.

Spectacular fireworks lit the length of the tower, while the Dubai Fountain, the world’s largest water feature, danced and played traditional Arabic music. The event was a reminder of what Dubai does best. But what is likely to stick in the mind of those watching is that Abu Dhabi had paid for the festivities.